Sunday, 9:55 a.m. - Day 2 metagame overview

by Event Coverage Staff

The action is heating up in day two as we sprint down the Top 8 stretch. With approximately 200 players earning the right to play today, we have taken the time to break down the archetypes present here at Grand Prix Lille. Here are the raw numbers:

UW Humans 30

UW Delver 24

RG Aggro 19

UB Control 16

RG Ramp 16

Frites 11

UB Zombies 9

Mono-Black Zombies 9

Esper Control 7

BW Tokens 6

Spirits Delver 5

UB Tezzeret 5

GW Township Aggro 4

Naya Pod 3

Mono-Green Aggro 3

Tempered Steel 3

UR Aggro 2

GRB Ramp 2

GB Ramp 2

UB Heartless Lich 1

GWB Ramp 1

Red Deck Wins 1

Mono-Green mid-range 1

UBR Zombies 1

GWR Ramp 1

GBR Birthing Pod 1

RB Zombies 1

GBU Tezzeret 1

GW Ramp 1

5-color control 1

GUR mid-range 1

GWU Birthing Pod 1

UB Delver Zombies 1

Round 11 Feature Match - Richard Bland vs. Gabriel Nassif

by Tobi Henke

Both players had sat at this very table here in Lille before. Both had won their match then, on their way to a 9-1 score so far. Now, however, only one of them could be a winner. England's Richard Bland brought Delver of Secrets to the fight, while Hall of Famer Gabriel Nassif was playing the French mono-black Zombies deck.

Nassif was forced to stay on defense. He managed to trade away all of his creatures except for the Vault Skirge to get rid of the 4/4 Geist. Bland had a hexproof replacement in Invisible Stalker, but now Nassif had a Sword of War and Peace of his own, which in combination with the lifelink of its bearer, the Vault Skirge, provided a much-needed reprieve. Nassif was soon pulling ahead in the battle of Sword against Sword. Delver of Secrets, for which Nassif had Go for the Throat, was all Bland was able to muster, and it wasn't enough.

The first attack with Sword of War and Peace made that 8. Bland debated whether to play anything post-combat, but decided to keep his cards in hand, relying on Vapor Snag off his one untapped land to survive the next attack. However, when Nassif had a second Lashwrithe which allowed him to attack with a 6/6, a 6/1, and a 2/1, that clearly wasn't enough.

As the Day 2 metagame overview showed, the current Standard format is very diverse – the list of raw data contained as many as 33 separate archetypes! While this is exciting, the fact that there are so many viable decks to choose from can be quite daunting. With this in mind, I set out to break the metagame down into more manageable pieces.

If we lump several archetypes together (e.g., consider UB Zombies, Mono-Black Zombies, UBR Zombies, and RB Zombies together as a grand "Zombie" archetype), we get the following picture: In the lead are white Human decks (including both versions that splash blue for Moorland Haunt, as well as versions with a token theme that are splashing black): roughly 19% of the Day 2 participants here in Lille are running Champion of the Parish.

Next up, we have a tie between Delver decks (both Blue-White versions and the Lingering Souls variants), slow control decks (Blue-Black Control, Esper Control, etc.), and Strangleroot Geist Aggro (spearheaded by Red-Green Aggro, but also including Mono-Green and Green-White versions): each of these three grand archetypes account for 16% of the Day 2 metagame.

Further down the list, we see that roughly 13% of the Day 2 players are piloting Ramp decks (Green-Red, Green-Black, etc.), 11% are playing Zombies, and 6% are playing Frites. That rounds up the top archetypes here in Lille.

The remaining archetypes are all fringe, including the Mono-Red deck that I advocated as a good choice for the current Standard metagame. Hardly anyone played it on Day 1, and only one brave player – Asboern Anthonsen – made it to Day 2 with Mono-Red. He's currently not in a likely position to make Top 8; thus, my prediction that at least one Mono-Red deck would make it to the Top 8 is unlikely to come true. Instead, the metagame analysis suggests that we'll probably see a bunch of Human decks in the Top 8, although it's still too early to tell definitively.

As I went through the decklists, the sideboard of various Frites decks stood out to me. Frites is a popular choice among the French players here today, and some of them included a surprise in their sideboards: the possibility to "transform". The idea is that you take out various reanimator cards and bring in Thrun, the Last Troll, Strangleroot Geist, Grim Lavamancer, Phyrexian Metamorph and/or Sword of War and Peace. This allows you to approach game 2 from a completely different angle, putting a lot of pressure on your opponent with cheap, hard-to-kill threats, while your opponent is hopefully stuck with now-useless Surgical Extractions and Grafdigger's Cage in hand. It's a great way to sidestep the hate.

Among the players running this funky sideboard are Raphael Levy and Elie Pichon. I briefly sat down with Hall of Famer Raphael Levy to ask how the sideboard has been for him this weekend. "It has been very good for me", Raph said. "Surgical Extraction just wrecks you otherwise, but now I don't really care about it. Also, Strangleroot Geist and Thrun, the Last Troll are extremely difficult to deal with for many decks."

Round 13 Feature Match - Richard Parker vs. Grzegorz Kowalski

by Frank Karsten

Both Richard Parker from England (with an 11th place finish at Pro Tour Valencia to his name) and Grzegorz Kowalski from Poland have their sights set on their first Grand Prix Top 8. Parker, currently the sole undefeated player at 12-0, is playing Blue-Black Zombies – a deck that is designed to curve out with a creatures and to finish off the opponent with Geralf's Messenger and Mortarpod. Kowalski, at an excellent 11-1 record, is running Wolf Run Ramp.

Parker used his fourth turn productively: he played Geth's Verdict to clear the way and added Phantasmal Image copying Geralf's Messenger to the board. This blazingly fast start already took down Kowalski to 6 life, and it looked like the Polish player was in trouble.

While shuffling Parker's deck, Kowalski noticed that some of Parker's cards were facing the wrong direction, and called a judge to verify that there was no pattern. Parker explained that he must have shuffled his cards from last game back into his deck upside-down by mistake. The judge at the table checked the deck, ruled that there was indeed no pattern, and instructed Parker to make sure that all of his sleeve openings are on the same side of his deck. After that, we were underway again.

When Parker attacked with both of his creatures on turn 4, Kowalski thought for a while before eventually trying to get rid of the 1/1 Fume Spitter by blocking it with his 2/2 Wolf token. Parker, however, had plans for his Fume Spitter: he sacrificed it targeting Huntmaster of the Fells, and a post-combat Mortarpod dealt the second point of damage to kill the werewolf.

On the next turn, Diregraf Ghoul and the Wolf token traded; as a result, the board was completely swept clean again, save for a Mortarpod that remained on Parker's side of the table. A Geralf's Messenger from Parker next dealt a ton of damage to Kowalski, before dying (twice) in a flurry of burn spells.

Parker drew another Phantasmal Image on his next turn, now stuck with two of them in his hand and no creatures to copy in sight. Kowalski eventually drew a creature in Primeval Titan, searching up Kessig Wolf Run. This gave Parker the opportunity to put his Phantasmal Images to good use. However, Kowalski's Wolf Run could shoot down one of Parker's 6/6 Images by just targeting it, and Kowalski did just that before passing the turn again.

Parker drew Geralf's Messenger on his next turn, and given that his Polish opponent was already down a single-digit life total, the Brit saw the following sequence of plays to win the game that very turn: he started by casting Geralf's Messenger and equipping it with Mortarpod. He subsequently attacked with his Phantasmal Titan, which was promptly blocked by Kowalski's real Primeval Titan. Mid-combat, Parker sacrificed his Messenger to deal one damage to his opponent, and followed it up with a Tragic Slip on Kowalski's blocker. This allowed the Phantasmal Titan to trample for lethal damage. Excellent timing and a Morbid way of winning the match!

Richard Parker 2 – Grzegorz Kowalski 0

Richard Parker is currently the only undefeated player with a pristine 13-0 record. As he only had one bye, this translates to an impressive 12 match wins in a row! Grzegorz Kowalski falls to 11-2,; although he's still in a fine position, he will likely have to go undefeated from this point forward in order to make the Top 8 cut.

Richard Parker leading the pack in Lille at 13-0

Sunday, 1:21 p.m. - Divulger of Secrets

by Tobi Henke

Matthew Costa is not only a Pro Tour Top 8 competitor and Grand Prix champion, but it appears he's also one very nice guy. After his win at Grand Prix Baltimore a week ago, he was contacted by Germany's Sascha Schwarz through Magic Online who asked him about his deck, its match-ups, and advice on how to play it. Schwarz planned to play Costa's deck this weekend, and he was happily surprised to find Costa willing to share his insight.

Scwarz started out this weekend at 9-0

"He even wrote me an email and explained his sideboard choices," Schwarz said. "That was so cool. Also, what he told me about R/G Aggro completely transformed my view of the match-up. For example, he said that Mana Leak, if used correctly, was way better than you might think it would be against an aggressive deck, and that Vapor Snag was the MVP."

"In a lot of match-ups, it's apparently correct to board out Invisible Stalker. So I thought: How about replacing them altogether with Midnight Haunting? But Costa told me that the preboard games are very different and that the main reason for cutting the Stalker postboard was the opponent's artifact removal. I don't know whether I would've made the connection between artifact removal and Invisible Stalker myself," admitted Schwarz, "and I'm happy Costa pointed it out."

"Another example: I originally wanted to have Flashfreeze in my sideboard," Schwarz continued, "however Costa warned me about the match-up against U/B Control. It's about even—on a theoretical level—though much harder to play correctly for the Delver player. That's why Costa had Dissipate in his sideboard and why I have them too. It's still very good against R/G Ramp, but simply not as narrow as Flashfreeze."

Schwarz made good use of the advice he got, and started the tournament with a clean 9-0 sweep. Final words from Schwarz: "Thank you!"

Sunday, 2:07 p.m. - Frank's Four to Follow

by Frank Karsten

As I went through the Day 2 decklists earlier today, there were several decks that looked particularly interesting to me: Blue-Black Tezzeret, Delver Zombies, GWb Titan Tokens, and Jund Pod. These decks might not be perfectly tuned yet and none of their pilots appear to be in contention for the Top 8, but they are certainly something different, and they seem like a lot of fun to play. Let's get to the lists!

Grafdigger's Cage is a very good at stopping Unburial Rites and undying creatures, but against the large amount of decks that do not rely on their graveyard, it typically is an utter blank. That's where Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas comes in, turning Grafdigger's Cage into a respectable 5/5 threat. John Considine combined both cards in this interesting UB Tezzeret list.

Named "Heathy at Sam this morning" on the deck registration sheet, which also lists Ben Heath and Ross Silcock as the deck designers, this Blue-Black concoction throws together the best of Delver and Zombies. A card that stands out in particular is Altar's Reap, which seems like a perfect fit for this deck; it's an instant to reveal to Delver of Secrets, it can be flashbacked with Snapcaster Mage, and it can eat Gravecrawler and Geralf's Messenger for profit.

While Lukas Blohon showed the power of Strangleroot Geist in his Naya Birthing Pod deck in the Top 8 of Pro Tour Dark Ascension, Romain Perrier must have felt that Black is better than White. Access to black certainly enables powerful cards that work very well with Birthing Pod: Geralf's Messenger is very happy to be turned into a Skinrender, while Massacre Wurm and Sheoldred, Whispering One can win games out of nowhere. Although the mana base is perhaps a bit shaky, it is certainly an interesting take on how to abuse Birthing Pod.

So that's my selection of four decks to follow. If you've been looking for a fun and powerful deck to play for Friday Night Magic or Magic Online, give one of these deck a spin!

Round 15 Feature Match - Bart van Etten vs. Kenny Öberg

by Tobi Henke

Bart van Etten was one of the overnight leaders, finishing day one at 9-0 with G/W/R Birthing Pod. Kenny Öberg on the other hand barely squeezed in at 7-2, but hasn't lost a match since with his green-white aggro deck.

Öberg killed the opposing Golem token with Dismember and attacked with both of his creatures—or rather all four of his creatures, thanks to Hero of Bladehold. Van Etten blocked the two 1/1 tokens dead with Strangleroot Geist and Blade Splicer. His Geist returned and he also had another Blade Splicer to replace its fallen comrade. Öberg, though, had Geist-Honored Monk which threatened to take over the game. Van Etten went without play and was falling dangerously low on life when Öberg's token army came crashing in. For a second, it seemed as if van Etten's Wurmcoil Engine might be able to save him, but the next attack brought van Etten down to 4, and Mortarpod finished him off.

Sunday, 2:53 p.m. - Bonus deck tech: Mono-Color Aggro decks

by Frank Karsten

As requested on the Cover-It-Live-stream: two more bonus decklists! By popular demand, I have Gabriel Nassif's Mono Black Zombies list and Robert van Medevoort's Mono Green Aggro decklist. Both decks don't toy around with nonbasic lands, going for an all-Swamp or all-Forests manabase instead, and both decks try to quickly rush out of the gates with aggressive early drops.